Schematic diagrams include multiple components to illustrate the subject matter of the particular diagram. For example, in the aircraft industry, electrical wiring diagrams are used to illustrate all of the conductive paths among the various elements of the aircraft. Thus, the term component used herein refers to any type of element included in the particular schematic diagram to illustrate the desired subject matter. In electrical wiring diagrams, for instance, components include modules, line replaceable units, plugs, switches, buses, power sources, grounds, wires, connectors, etc.
Typically, the schematic diagrams are embodied in set of multiple hard copy sheets that each include a relatively small portion of the overall schematic diagram. Thus, each sheet in a set includes references to other sheets where the portion of the schematic diagram is continued. These references are typically called “off-sheet references.” The hard copy sheet sets are very time-consuming and difficult for users, such as maintenance personnel, to use, particularly when they need to reference more than one component, because they must manually locate one of the components in the sheets and then trace the connection to the other component through sometimes multiple sheets. In addition, many times a component is illustrated on multiple sheets, such as when the component is included in more than one conductive path. Thus, a user must first locate the sheet that includes the desired conductive path associated with the component.
Due to the difficulties involved in manually locating and tracing various components and conductive paths in schematic diagrams that are embodied in sets of multiple hard copy sheets, techniques have been developed for creating electronic schematic diagrams that are much easier and less time-consuming to utilize. For example, the electronic schematic diagrams contain automatic links among the various sheets, such that a user may easily see all of the conductive paths associated with a particular element and may easily navigate through the schematic. Examples of the technologies that create the electronic schematic diagrams and the associated features of the electronic diagrams are discussed in detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/971,283, entitled “Method, Computer Program Product, and System for Performing Automated Linking Between Sheets of a Drawing Set,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/971,155, entitled “Method, Computer Program Product, and System for Creating and Viewing an Intelligent Graphics File Including Parts Information,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/971,149, entitled, “Method, Computer Program Product, and System for Performing Automated Text Recognition and Text Search Within a Graphic File.” The contents of each of these applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
In many electronic schematic diagrams, it is desirable to illustrate only a portion of the schematic to the user, such as a subset of the components, which also may be called a family of components. For example, if the user is going to work on a particular component, the user may wish to only view the component and any connections between that component and one or more other components, such as the power source and/or ground associated with the component. Thus, in this example, the subset/family of components would include the component to be worked upon, the power source and/or ground associated with the component and any component that connects the component to be worked upon to the power source and/or ground.
Such subsets/families of components must be manually created in conventional electronic schematic diagram technologies. For instance, a person must manually select each component that belongs in each subset/family of components. Thus, creating subsets/families of components for electronic schematic diagrams is a very time-consuming and labor-intensive process. As such, there is a need for a technique that is capable of creating subsets/families of components from electronic schematic diagrams in a more efficient and less time-consuming manner.